


Elliot Schafer and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

by ravenreyamidala



Series: Ire fortiter [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, In Other Lands, In Other Lands - Sarah Rees Brennan, The Turn of the Story - Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: Attempts at Wit, Commander Woodsinger is Long-Suffering, Elliot Has an Honorary Ph.D in Sarcasm, Elliot is Opinionated and the Sky is Blue, Gen, Hogwarts AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 13:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11968170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenreyamidala/pseuds/ravenreyamidala
Summary: Elliot was unprepared for a woman in a weird dress to show up and tell him he was a wizard. He's not going to stay unprepared.aka the Hogwarts AU no one asked for.





	Elliot Schafer and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> So it's common knowledge (or at least, you can Google it) that Sarah Rees Brennan wrote HP fanfic back in the heyday of HP fanfic. I do not think that "In Other Lands" is HP fanfic with the serial numbers scraped off-- I just thought it would be amusing to make a Hogwarts AU with her stories. A cyclical sort of thing, if you will. Plus I'm bollocks at world-building, and Harry Potter's world is something I know like the back of my hand. Anywho, this will be sort of canon-compliant, I'm just going to come up with weird explanations for things to make canon events fit in this AU. 
> 
> As part of the making canon events fit this AU, this is set way in the future, like Harry Potter's great grandchildren future. I don't really care about establishing the exact year because hand-wavey fourth wall magic, and we won't be spending that much time in the muggle world anyway, and the wizarding world has not...really progressed....that much in terms of technology. But yes, one of the aspects of this future is that Muggles have figured out how to print gifs so they still move on paper.
> 
> Standard Disclaimer: I own nothing, much less the copyright to the HP Universe or "In Other Lands." I'm just playing in a sandbox.

Some lady in a pointed hat and weird floor-length dress had come to his house on his eleventh birthday and told him he was a wizard. They had been sitting in the living room, and Elliot had politely blinked at her before he graciously offered to get her some tea from the kitchen. He was in the middle of dialing the madhouse when the lady-- Professor Woodsinger, Elliot seemed to recall-- startled him by slightly coughing right behind him, and reached an arm around him to cancel the call. He had started screaming, because at that point he was very sure she was going to take off her pointy hat, take out a sharp knife, and stab him with it. Instead, she took out a long stick from a holster on her waistband (she probably called it a wand, Elliot reasoned semi-hysterically in the corner of his mind that was being cool as a cucumber. Elliot urged it to panic like he was), and waved it. Elliot took a moment to stop screaming to point out the obvious. 

“Nothing happened,” he pointed out helpfully. 

Professor Woodsinger’s mouth turned down. Elliot resolved not to speak anymore. 

“I soundproofed the house so your neighbors wouldn’t check to see if you’ve been murdered,” she explained, in a way she probably thought was comforting. 

Elliot was not comforted. Elliot was the opposite of comforted. He contemplated whether or not he should start screaming in case she was just bluffing about the soundproofing, but he looked at her face again and realized that antagonizing the possible child predator was maybe not in his best interest. He tried to remember what you were supposed to say to unpredictable people who might kill you or sell you into a human trafficking ring. He settled on humoring her. 

“Let’s say that I believe you (I don’t by the way), and that magic exists. Show me something cool,” he said. 

Professor Woodsinger’s frown grew deeper as she contemplated that. Elliot didn’t understand why she didn’t simply wave her wand again, but then again, he wasn’t a possible child predator and couldn’t possibly be called on to understand why their minds worked the way they did. She fished something else out of her waistband and handed it to him. It was a card, like one of those trading cards the other kids at school used to simulate cricket games. There was a picture of a young man with black hair and green eyes sheepishly avoiding making eye contact with the camera. The picture was moving. Elliot politely looked at it while he waited for her to explain how it was magical. When it became clear she was not going to explain, he questioned his resolve not to speak. 

“I don’t understand,” he finally said, the words painful as he blew them out past gritted teeth. Elliot disliked not understanding things. 

“The picture...it’s moving,” Professor Woodsinger pointed out, in the tone of someone who thought he was an idiot. 

Elliot was not an idiot, thank you very much. Elliot had had top marks at his school all his life, and he had skipped two grades. He had done all this, learned five languages, learned ballroom dancing, and played three different instruments. The only thing Elliot had trouble with was talking to other people, and he reasoned that he maybe he could deign to lower himself to their standards, but then he’d actually talk like an idiot instead of people just thinking he was an idiot. 

“It’s not unusual or magical for pictures to move,” he told her, handing the card back. 

Her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion before she smoothed them out. She put the cards back, and murmured something about it being “time to update the Ugly Studies curriculum.” Elliot elected to ignore that. 

“I’m still not convinced magic exists, but you have convinced me you live under a rock,” Elliot continued. 

“I didn’t want to do this,” Professor Woodsinger muttered resentfully before grabbing something quickly from her pocket and grabbing Elliot. Before he could begin to fight her off, he felt a tug behind his navel, and he instinctively closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, he swayed for a second before leaning away from Professor Woodsinger and puking. The people around him gave him a wide berth after them, not even questioning the fact that he had shown up out of nowhere. That was London for y--- wait. 

“Where in the bloody hell are we?” he yelled. 

Professor Woodsinger rolled her eyes and pointedly did not answer his very important question. That was par for the course for most of the adults in his life, with the exception of the school guidance counselor, but the school guidance counselor still thought he was heterosexual, so maybe he didn’t count. As Elliot slowly controlled his breathing, he grew more aware of all the sounds around the sidewalk they were on. The chatter of the crowds definitely had a distinctly Britsh accent to it, so he relaxed slightly, knowing he was probably still in London. An area of London he hadn’t really seen before, but probably London. At least it was broad daylight if he managed to escape Professor Woodsinger. 

“Do you see that building?” she asked, pointing to a dodgy looking restaurant named “The Leaky Cauldron.” 

“Yee--ss?” Elliot said in a tone that didn’t so much imply as much as it said outright that the Professor was an idiot. 

“Okay, I understand that you’re used to being the smartest person in the room, but sometimes people do know more than you do,” Professor Woodsinger said. 

Elliot chewed over that for a second. 

“Not for long,” he retorted. 

The Professor looked like she was despairing of him, but settled on rolling her eyes and continuing with her demonstration. 

“Do you see all these people not walking into the restaurant? Check the time. It’s lunch time. Surely these people are hungry,” she pointed out. 

“That doesn’t mean anything. I wouldn’t go into that place. I’d probably get food poisoning,” Elliot answered. 

Just that moment, someone walked through the building. Elliot felt his eyes popped as the idea of magic suddenly became more likely to him. 

“See?” Professor Woodsinger said smugly.

“Are you telling me I have magical powers?” Elliot asked, excited for a moment, and then added “Because I can’t walk through walls? That doesn’t seem right.”

“Great, he knows logic,” Professor Woodsinger muttered. She did not seem prepared for all the questions and well-reasoned out holes he poked in her proof. 

She dragged him into the restaurant. He tried his best to not touch anything in the restaurant, but by the time she had dragged him to the back, he had resigned himself to the fact that he was probably going to get some terrible disease that had supposedly been vaccinated out of existence three centuries ago. They came to a stop in front of a brick wall. Professor Woodsinger gripped her wand firmly, and began tapping the bricks--3 up and 2 across. Elliot watched cynically until the moment the bricks started to move. He was amazed for a moment before he realized how easily someone could rig up a machine to respond to a certain pattern of motion. 

“Lady, you’re not convincing me,” Elliot said. 

Professor Woodsinger visibly gave up. She shoved a pouch with something inside that clinked and an a thick white envelope addressed to him towards his chest. Elliot caught them, bewildered.

“Open the envelope. Get out your book list. We’re getting your school supplies. No more questions,” she gritted out. 

They walked through the brickway onto a bustling market street. Elliot reasoned that there were enough people around to help him if the professor made a move to hurt him, so he trotted along with her. 

They got cauldrons and potion ingredients and books (Elliot got only the required ones. He wasn’t going to waste free money on clearly fictional books that were trying to be nonfiction) and an Owl, although Elliot had to be forced to get that last one. They even fitted him for some of those weird dress thingies that Professor Woodsinger informed him were robes, but Elliot had resolved never to wear. After what seemed like eternity but was actually probably less than an hour, they went to the wand shop. The proprietor of the shop seemed to light up when she saw Elliot. 

“Eh, a non-believer yeah? It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone so stubbornly opposed to the idea of magic. But I can understand where you are coming from. Here for a wand, then? Let’s see. Try this,” she, presumably Ollivander since that’s what the sign on the door proclaimed, said. 

Elliot tried many wands. Lots and lots of wands. Professor Woodsinger went and got fish and chips from the Leaky Cauldron, and though he refused to eat them because of principle, the smell curled its way around the shop as he kept trying wands. Finally, Elliot burst. Frankly, he was astounded it took him so long. 

“One wand’s just as good as another, isn’t it? Just give me any old wand,” he said angrily. 

Ollivander contemplated that for a moment, and then reached for a wandbox, blowing dust off the top. 

“Applewood and Phoenix feather, 12 and 3 quarters inches, slightly springy,” Ollivander pondered, before handing it off to Elliot. 

Elliot had never felt this way before. The warmth, the light floaty feeling. He waved his wand, and Professor Woodsinger’s fish and chips doubled. He wondered if he had felt this way when his mother had held him for the first time, if this was the way other children felt when their parents hugged them. 

Ollivander looked at him, her eyes too knowing. He looked away. 

“I would have thought for sure that you’d have an Ebony wood wand. Came close there too a couple of times. But hey, maybe you’ll speak to mermaids someday,” Ollivander pondered out loud. 

Elliot was rendered speechless with joy.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I don't have nearly enough of the future parts of this series to be posting this today, but it is September 1st, so I had to. Hopefully I'll post the next part of the series, in which Luke and Elliot are sorted. It'll maybe be from Luke's perspective, since we haven't gotten that yet. No promises. Serene will come in at some point, but spoiler alert, she's a transfer student and doesn't come in until third year for Reasons. 
> 
> Ten points to the first person who guesses correctly where the chapter title's from. First person to fifty house points gets to request almost anything in this universe.


End file.
